I. NAPSNet

1. Inter-Korean Project Kaesong

Yonhap News Agency (“NUMBER OF N. KOREAN WORKERS AT KEASONG COMPLEX TOPS 10,000: MINISTRY”, 2006-11-22) reported that number of DPR Koreans working for ROK firms at Kaesong is now over 10,000. Seoul’s Unification Ministry said in a press release that a total of 10,093 DPR Korean laborers were working for 21 RO Korean businesses operating at the joint industrial complex as of Tuesday. Of the total, 80 percent there were women. The firms operating at the complex were paying an average total of US$600,000 a month in wages to their DPR Korean employees earlier in the year when the size of the workforce there was at about 7,000, according to the ministry. An estimate of total wages for those currently working at the complex was not immediately available.

(return to top)

2. Inter-Korean Relations

Reuters (“SOUTH KOREA’S PYEONGCHANG SEEKS NORTH’S SUPPORT FOR BID”, 2006-11-22) reported that a top official from the ROK city of Pyeongchang, which is campaigning to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, went to the DPRK on Wednesday to discuss ways they could support the bid. Bid officials have said they do not plan to have the DPRK host any of the events for the Games but they expect that by 2014 the two Koreas will be competing as a unified team. The Koreas have marched together at past Olympics, including this year’s Winter Games in Turin, but competed as separate teams.

(return to top)

3. UNEP and the Koreas

Korea Times (“UN TO OPEN BRANCH HERE”, 2006-11-23) reported that the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) will build its Northeast Asian branch in the ROK and create an environmental business model for the DPRK.

(return to top)

4. US-ROK Trade Relations

Reuters (“S.KOREAN WORKERS STRIKE WORK, RALLIES FIZZLE “, 2006-11-22) reported that thousands of ROK union workers went on strike on demanding laws to protect labor and an end to talks on a free trade deal with the US, labor leaders said. But outdoor rallies aimed at bringing hundreds of thousands of workers to the streets fizzled as less than 10,000 showed up at the biggest meeting held in downtown Seoul.

(return to top)

5. Japan Security Council

Kyodo (“JAPAN GOV’T PANEL ON U.S.-TYPE SECURITY COUNCIL HOLDS 1ST MEETING “, 2006-11-22) reported that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held his first meeting with a panel of experts Wednesday to discuss how to create a Japanese Security Council modeled on the U.S. National Security Council, and its members confirmed they would compile a report by the end of February. They called for a Japanese version of the NSC in order to coordinate and integrate Japan’s foreign and security policies, and to reinforce the country’s intelligence capabilities in a strategic manner.

(return to top)

6. Sino-Indian Relations

Agence France-Presse (“CHINA’S PRESIDENT CHARTS ‘NEW COURSE’ FOR PEACE IN SOUTH ASIA”, 2006-11-22) reported that PRC President Hu Jintao declared his country was ready to play a constructive role for peace in South Asia and that he had made his trip to India to enhance mutual trust. Hu, the first PRC president to visit India in a decade, added in a keynote speech to top government officials he wanted to “chart a new course” for future strategic relations between the world’s two most populous nations.

(return to top)

7. PRC AIDS Issue

Agence France-Presse (“HIV/AIDS ON THE RISE IN CHINA “, 2006-11-22) reported that the PRC is experiencing a surge in the number of new HIV/AIDS infections as the virus spreads from high-risk groups to the general public. There were 183,733 people confirmed with HIV/AIDS at the end of October, with the state-run press reporting the number was 27.5 percent higher than at the end of 2005. The number of confirmed, or reported, cases was far lower than the estimate of 650,000 people in the PRC with HIV/AIDS announced in a report released jointly by the United Nations and the PRC government in January.

(return to top)

8. PRC Wealth Disparity

Financial Times (“CHINA’S POOREST WORSE OFF AFTER ECONOMIC BOOM”, 2006-11-22) reported that the PRC’s poor grew poorer at a time when the country was growing substantially wealthier, an analysis by World Bank economists has found. The real income of the poorest 10 per cent of the PRC’s 1.3bn people fell by 2.4 per cent in the two years to 2003, the analysis showed, a period when the economy was growing by nearly 10 per cent a year. Over the same period, the income of the PRC’s richest 10 per cent rose by more than 16 per cent.

(return to top)

9. PRC Environment

Reuters (“POLLUTION TURNS PART OF YELLOW RIVER RED “, 2006-11-22) reported that dyed waste water turned a section of the PRC’s Yellow River red for the second time in a month, state media reported Wednesday. The PRC’s second-longest river changed color for more than an hour in Lanzhou, a city of 2 million and the capital of the western province of Gansu, the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper said. The newspaper said the polluted section was more than a mile long.

(return to top) Reuters (“CHINA PUNISHES OFFICIALS FOR POISON RIVER SPILL “, 2006-11-22) reported that the PRC has disciplined officials for a chemical leak that contaminated a river and cut off drinking water and pledged action against those responsible for two other environmental disasters, state media reported. Hu Zhirong, Communist Party boss of Linxiang, in the central province of Hunan, received a disciplinary warning for initially protecting the polluting plants with special government documents and then being slack in investigating their problems after the spill, state radio reported. Senior managers at the factories have already been detained. (return to top)

10. Announcement

(“”, ) The Nautilus Institute will be closed for the U.S. Thanksagiving Holiday on the 23rd and 24th of November. There will be no Daily Report on Tursday the 23rd.

(return to top)